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February 12 Sunday Bicycle touring Italy Sardinia at the sacred Santa Cristina well near Paulilatino Sardinia With the shutters closed, the kitchen we are in is in complete and total blackness. I can't see my hand in front of my face. At 6 AM this morning I awoke when Francesco thumped his boots back on and clumped across the cold red-tiled floor. Sharon and I waited until seven when light peeked around the shutter and then got up. The sun popped over the horizon a few minutes later. Francesco hasn't installed a toilet at his farmhouse. He says staying here is like camping for him. Just like bicycle touring. I make a hasty trip to a back corner of the large farmyard and find a spot along the rock wall. Francesco returns with a full milk can of sheep's creamy yellow milk. The milk is still warm. It steams while he pours some out into a pot through a strainer. We heat it on the stove for rich hot chocolate. Sunlight streams through the streaky windowpane. I can see sheep and baby lambs pass by on their way to morning pasture. Francesco herded them into the yard this morning to feed them a mixture of grains. These aren't the ones he milks as they have babies. There are some tiny day old ones. Francesco leaves to deliver the milk while we slurp our second bowl of hot chocolate, savoring the thickness of the wholesome broth. Sharon says we shouldn't be drinking the profits. We will be spoiled when we have to go back to using plain water again. Sinfully delicious and smooth. At 10 AM Francesco returns with a suckling pig and places it to roast in the oven. He says we have time to go visit the sacred Santa Cristina well before lunch. Sharon and I walk to the bar and then to the well after paying the admission. I want to take a picture of the well and when we went last night at sunset there wasn't enough light. At the well we meet Neil and Rosie. He is from the UK and she is from Sardegna. They traveled to Commonwealth countries for a year and a half, backpacking. Neil had bought a shirt somewhere that was selling western-style clothes. On the pocket it said: Golf Around the World. He says you wouldn't believe how many people asked if he was golfing around the world. He said "Yep, I hit the ball, walk to it and hit it again." Egads. Some Japanese guy has probably already done it. Without water too. They recommended we cycle tour Australia's east coast and Tasmania. They said that in Australia we can enjoy real beaches, instead of like our artificial one in Edmonton. It has been a long time since someone has mentioned West Edmonton Mall to us or has actually been there. Neil and Rosie looked after Hilda Creek Hostel on the Jasper-Banff Parkway for a while -- another of our favourite bicycle touring rides. They are both oil engineers. They looked for work in Calgary, but couldn't find anything. "Do you want to swap passports?" they ask. They are now living in France, a small town in the Pyrenees close to Andorra, where they are trying to introduce telemark skiing. They are buying a store to try to become the MEC of Europe they half-jokingly tell us. They have to rush off to Rosie's parents for lunch. They give us their address. We return to the bar and see Francesco is having a beer at a table by the fire. We go over to sit with him by the fire. The sun has been making brief appearances every few minutes but it is cool when the sun is behind clouds. The small fire is a cozy touch. It is almost lunch time and the girls who serve at lunch are putting orangy-peach coloured linen on the tables. A split in two pig's head, complete with ears and eyes, is placed on a grill in front of the coals. After a few minutes, Francesco turns the pig's head over. I am beginning to worry he has ordered a special treat for us, but thankfully, in a few minutes, we get up and leave. At the back of the bar there are cabins. We go and meet friends of his who are staying there. Marguerite, who gives us some tasty olives she has made; Claudio, their son; and Giovanni the father. We are driven back to Francesco's house by Giovanni. We arrive to a smoke-filled room that is soon cleared out by opening the window. I think the pig is done. Francesco cuts the pig into pieces and sets the serving platter onto the table. We eat a mountainous pile of juicy suckling pig with a few olives on the side for variety. Our bicycle touring friend, Vern, a vegetarian, would have a fit. It's definitely a vegetarian's nightmare. A carnivore's delight. Part-way through my third helping, Francesco goes into the back bedroom and brings out a jar of mushrooms. The vegetables have arrived! Finishing these, he goes and gets a jar of sliced green peppers that he has canned himself. They get two thumbs up. I have what is beginning to look like a biology lab gone bad on my plate when Francesco serves up the delicacy coup de grace for the meal. "Cervella," he calls it. I look it up in my Italian dictionary. Ah. How can I put this? It is what zee leetle peeg tinks wiz. Yes. I have my first taste of brains. I mash it up and spread it on bread. It taste like -- well -- brains, I guess. See? I'm smarter already. Reminds me of paté. Francesco offers me a trotter. But I decline as I'm really full and I do know where those things have been. We finish with fresh chestnuts that Francesco cracks out of the shell. They are sweet. Sometimes he roasts them over the fire in a pan hanging on the wall that has small holes in the bottom. I look up the word "sweet" to describe my taste sensation to Francesco of the chestnuts. "Dolce, carmello," it says. My utterance results in Francesco jumping up and running into the mystery back room. He returns with a bag of candies. We go outside to bring the pasturing sheep in for their afternoon Muesli. When we got back from the bar, Sharon got in the three-wheeled ubiquitous trucks we see on the island that Francesco uses to transport the milk to the road where the milk truck picks it up. We see these noisy little three-wheelers everywhere -- sometimes crammed with two or three people in them. They carry a variety of cargo from milk to wood, bales and rocks. First we feed the pigs. Francesco drives the three-wheeler into the pen and pours five cans of pale yellow milky liquid into cut in half tractor tires to the pigs' squealing delight. The big ones knock the little ones out of the way. They stand with their feet inside the tire adding flavor to their milk. One gigantic pig is in a separate pen. Francesco explains that she is ready to have babies. She gets milk, plus a grain mixture, and noisily grunts her approval of Francesco's culinary skills. The herd of cats get some of the leftover milk. There are seven dogs of various sizes and styles ranging from a mottled coat killer snapping like a crazed pit bull tied to a huge timber in the middle of the yard. He is fenced off from a white dog which is tied to a tree. Another white dog is tied by the hogs and silently watches us go by. He is the silent stealth type. A third white dog roams free and usually walks around meekly with a stubby tail between his legs. Sometimes it is with the sheep, but it doesn't get any respect. I saw one head butt it this morning. Another white dog is handsome, strongly built and sociable. Two other dark pups stay around the sheep and pig pen. One has legs so short its belly drags on the ground. At least half a dozen cats are around, too. Francesco had gotten us to stand behind the pasture gate, so we don't scare the sheep as they come through. He grabbed a spotted lamb that is ten days old and poses for a picture. The lamb is frisky and not at all cooperative. As the other sheep pass through the gate, Francesco grabs a day old one that has black circle patches around each eye and black lips. A real little cutie. Sharon holds it. As Francesco pours grain into a trough for the sheep, the little one Sharon had cries unconsolably for its mama. We walk back to the bar while Francesco putts alongside on his scooter with a milk can. Time to milk those other sheep again. We go to look at the Nuraghe village while Francesco goes to milk. We soon tire of the rocks -- when you've seen one Nuraghe, you've seen them all. The architecture and floor plan is the same in all of them. This area has the highest concentration of Nuraghes on the island -- averaging one per square kilometre. Of the 7000 Nuraghes on the island, it feels like I've seen 6999. But there's always one more. We decide to go back to the bar and read a book by the fireplace, but friends of Francesco's have other ideas. The shepherd that lives next door to Francesco is a tall lanky fellow with a gift for gab and he buys us a beer. He talks my leg off. I don't understand anything he's saying. Sign language. Cows. He wants us to go with him to milk cows. I think I liked it better when I didn't understand him. We tell him, "No. We're waiting for Francesco." He is insistent. We'll be back before Francesco gets here, he tells us. "No," we say. This guy has had a lot of beers. The two guys next to him keep shaking their heads no, say no, whenever we look at them, warning us not to go with him. He drives a motor bike with a big engine and they describe his driving as moto-gross. Francesco returns and has another couple of beers. We go back to his place. His 'friend' comes too. He talks to us nonstop. Francesco tells him we don't understand a word he is saying. He asks us. We confirm we don't understand a word. He continues to babble at us. Francesco finally yells at him. "Shut up! They don't understand you." He asks again if this is true. We say we don't understand a thing. Since he likes to talk and we don't understand him, he has no audience, so, after a few minutes, he gets up and leaves. Francesco makes bow-tie pasta with more tomato meat parmesan sauce. Francesco from the bar arrives in time to clean up the leftovers. Another fire crackles merrily in the stone hearth. Francesco from the bar is about to leave. We shake hands and do the double cheek good-bye thing. I get my first ever whisker burn since Uncle Dave used to grab us when I was about five years old. It feels good on my itchy insect bites. Then Francesco remembers to bring out the Tupperware cheese, even more delicious since it has aged another day. Of course, Francesco from the bar can't resist having some. He loves it. I remember I still have yesterday's cheese sample in my pocket. I liked it so much, I even slept with it. Pocket cheese. A new product from Italy. Francesco reaches in for a second helping with his fingers and Francesco slaps him. "Use a fork," he tells him. Francesco is very particular about hygiene and his cheese. This morning with the milk warming on the stove I was going to use a wooden spoon to stir it and he gave me a metal spoon instead. Music plays from the radio. Francesco goes into the endless mystery room and returns with a plastic bag full of cassettes. Traditional Sardegna Sardinian music soon replaces the American tunes. There is a traditional dance too. Really? Will they show us? Of course. They get up and arm in arm do a fast paced dance that looks like an Irish jig with the occasional Spanish yell thrown in for good measure. Even the music reminds me of Irish jigging. Talk of carnivals that are now happening in the surrounding area resumes as they take a breather. There are lots of horses in the carnivals. Francesco brings out his pictures from last year when he participated. There his is proudly on his white horse. There is another with buddies on one another's shoulders as they race along. There is one of an upside down middle rider between two horses racing along. He gives Sharon a picture. Francesco from the bar, not to be outdone, gives Sharon a pen with a sliding sailboat. I can tell she is the favorite. All I got was another whisker burn. |
